


Bargain with me

by Bananacakes141



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Five Years Later, One Shot, Post-Crooked Kingdom, Post-Six of Crows, Romance, Tension, inej is a plotting bean, kaz is a stupid bean, maybe one day i'll continue this, not really sexual, old habits die hard for good ol kaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananacakes141/pseuds/Bananacakes141
Summary: Kaz is settled into his new life as king of the Barrel. He has everything he wants, and needs. Until old friends come knocking with an offer he can't refuse.





	Bargain with me

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic I've written in...... two years??? Jesus Christ that's just sad.

Kaz sat his desk scribbling away at paperwork that he had long since stopped caring about, it was just one signature after another. Behind him sat bags of money that needed to be counted and tucked away into the safe. Below him the Crow Club was rowdy as ever as poor tourists slapped money on the tables they would likely never see again. Rain drenched the streets of Ketterdam, fat droplets rolled down the windows of Crow Club desperately trying to pull some of the grime off the glass, to no avail.

Kaz ran a gloved hand through his hair, and glanced at the pile of unsigned documents to his right. It would be a long night. He moved to reach for the next sheet and pain shot through his leg, he’d been sitting too long. He reached down and massaged his leg watching the fabric of his pants move in circular motions with his fingers, as he did so his mind began to drift.

He’d been sitting for years too long. He sat at the desk that he had yearned for , he was taking down Rollins one kurge at a time, his revenge tasted sweeter than spring honey. But he needed something more, he was loath to admit it but he missed being in the streets, having his life on the line with every breath he took. He closed his eyes and thought of that job, all the money they’d made, his crew disappearing into the smoke of gunfire only to reemerge bloody and victorious.

Then he felt it. A presence, ghostly and familiar. No one else in the world would have felt the subtly, like a breath on the wind; she had probably snuck through the whole city that way. He opened his eyes and ignored the warmth that filled him, and said cooly to the empty room, “Welcome back Wraith,”

“Kaz,” a smokey voice reach his ear causing his chest to twist painfully, she sounded different.

Out of the shadowy corner stepped Inej. She wore black leather pants and boots, and a loose fitting charcoal tunic that she had tucked in. She looked every bit the sailor she wanted to be, and if he had any sympathy left in him he would have extended it to the slavers she was hunting. Her hair was in its classic braid, she looked just as she had when he had left her at the docks, five years ago. He knew she wasn’t the same, her eyes burned with a steady fire he wasn’t used to and her steps, silent as always were now somehow heavier like the sorrows of thousands of slaves weighed on her shoulders, which he supposed it did.

As she approached the desk she said “You look the same,”

“Did you expect something else?” Why did it hurt to hear that he was the same when she was clearly not.

“I don’t know what I expected.” she huffed quietly

“I can assure you that Dirty Hands will always be the same,” he laced his fingers together to keep his hands steady.

“I said you look the same. You are not the same person you were five years ago Kaz.”

His stomach clenched and unclenched at the sound of her voice. How he had missed her. Her voice was an anchor keeping him in place, her eyes calmed the raging storm of his heart. But she also weighed him down like an ankle weight in a rising tide. She was a distraction, a weakness, at least he tried to convince himself of that. Then she left and he found that without her he had been set adrift amongst the hungry sharks of Ketterdam.

He had let the silence draw on too long, she was searching his face, for what, he had no idea. He needed to say something, but every word he uttered would be a new leak in the dam, and if wasn’t careful he would flood her with words he could never take back.

“It’s good to see you,” he leaned back in his chair, “but you’re not here for a social call.”

A look crossed her face, that may have been hurt, and she steeled herself much faster than she used to, but he still saw it.

It was better this way, he told himself. Better for her to have no reason to come back, just to leave him behind.

“I have a job for you Kaz,” her voice carried an emotion he didn't want to try to decipher.

“I don’t do jobs anymore,” Flippant. Dismissive. 

“You’ll do this one,” she dangled the sentence in front of him like a piece of meat to stray dog.

“No,” he tried to sound firm.

She knew he too well, “I have something you can’t refuse,”

He could refuse anything. Unless it was her. He wanted to ask if she would come back. He would do anything if she would come back as his Wraith. He set his hand on the desk.

“I have all the money I need,” he said.

She leaned forward on the desk, her delicate finger merely centimeters away from his, “I’m here to offer my fleet. Four ships, they carry cargo for wealthy merchants and bring in eighty thousand kurge a month Kaz. You can take seventy percent if you do this job,”

Her ships bringing him money meant she would be in Ketterdam more. He could see her again. They could make this work, build something for themselves, a A tentative future started to unfold in his mind's eye. One where she still got to be out on the open seas and he stayed and ruled the city from the slums, and maybe they could meet somewhere in the middle. Could he ask that of her? Would she refuse him again?

He looked at her hands. He could reach out, take her hand tell her everything that had been fighting him all these years. How money meant less to him, and he’d been changing, he could be the man she wanted.

He pulled his hands off the desk, “I have a condition,”

She laughed darkly, “of course you do,”

“You come with me,” he locked his eyes on her.

This was a dare. Whatever it was she needed had to be important if she was offering this much money. If she had come her herself.

She leaned forward her eyes never wavering, they were bright with a challenge. She missed this life, no matter what she did to bury it, to seek forgiveness from her saints, she wanted to be here. To be the Wraith again.

She reached her hand out to shake his, “It’s a deal,”


End file.
